Opportunities

Are you a screenwriter looking for a setting to inspire? Spend four months writing in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, home to a remarkable natural environment and a lively culture guaranteed to spark your creativity.

Vancouver Public Library is seeking to host a resident screenwriter between August 26, 2019 and December 13, 2019. We are interested in hearing from a wide variety of writers working in the screenplay forms, including short films, feature films, television, mini-series, documentaries or video games.

VPL’s Writer in Residence program promotes Canadian writing and creativity to Vancouver citizens. The aim of the residency is to foster greater public appreciation for Canadian writing; to provide the community with opportunities to interact with and learn from the resident writer; and to provide the space, time and resources for a Canadian author to write.

The writer in residence will develop exciting public programs and provide advice to emerging writers through one-to-one consultations, group workshops and outreach to local communities. This is a full-time position (35 hours/week) with 40 percent of the writer’s time spent on creating and conducting public programs or projects, and 60 percent of their time working on their own creative writing projects.

Applicants must identify in their cover letter the innovative ways their residency and proposed programs would foster an appreciation for Canadian writing. Residencies that involve communities not typically exposed to Canadian literature are particularly encouraged.

Requirements:

Candidates must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada;

Have a significant body of screenwriting credits;

Professional teaching and public speaking experience;

Enthusiastic about engaging the public in one-on-one and group settings;

Be willing to actively participate in media opportunities to promote the residency, the library and writing culture;

Be able to reside in Vancouver or the Lower Mainland for the duration of the residency;

Proposed writing projects for this residency must be in the early working stage.

Remuneration:

$4,250/month (contract position)

This is a full-time position (35 hours/week)

Assistance available for travel expenses

Please note: The successful candidate is responsible for finding their own accommodation in Vancouver for the term of the residency.

Expression of Interest to include:

A cover letter that includes the innovative ways your residency and proposed programs would foster an appreciation for Canadian writing.

A Call-out to the Writing Community

The Museum at Campbell River is now seeking applicants for the 2019–2020 Haig-Brown Writer in Residence. This unique residency provides an excellent opportunity for pursuing personal writing projects in a peaceful and inviting setting.

The Haig-Brown House is a modest historic four-bedroom home that reflects the character of writer Roderick Haig-Brown and his wife Ann. It is located along the banks of the Campbell River on Vancouver Island. The house contains a heritage library, and is surrounded by two acres of gardens and 17 acres of parkland.

The residency covers the winter months, from November to April. During their stay, the writer’s time is divided between their own writing and providing literary advice and support to the local community, with writing time favoured on a 60/40 basis. This includes participating in winter programming at the Museum at Campbell River.

A stipend is provided, and accommodation is included as part of the residency.

There is a list of past writers, accompanied by a few testimonials, on the website listed below. When asked about their experience, past writers have found the residency to be a very profound and productive time. The house has often been described as a place that provides creative space and inspiration to those staying there.

The Festival is open to all writers and playwrights, worldwide, even if you have never written a play before. It is suggested that submissions be approximately 10 minutes in length (total reading time), can be of any genre (comedy, tragedy etc.), have a limited number of characters (1 to 6), and should not have been previously produced in any form.

The first page of the play should contain the play’s title, a pseudonym, and all pages must be numbered. The playwright’s actual name and contact information should be in a sealed envelope, with the script name and pseudonym on the front. This will ensure anonymity during the judging process.

Playwrights should avoid wording that might offend. Handwritten plays are not acceptable. Because of the nature of the Festival, the sets must be kept simple and be capable of being changed quickly. Playwrights may submit a maximum of two plays, using a different pseudonym per script. The reading committee will choose eight plays, by eight different playwrights, to be staged by the Annapolis District Drama Group utilizing local directors and actors. Of those eight, one will be chosen by Theatre Nova Scotia as the best written script and receive a prize of $300. A second place best written script, also chosen by Theatre Nova Scotia, will receive a prize of $150. All attending audiences will be asked to vote for the People’s Choice Award, announced at the Sunday matinee on June 16.

Scripts will not be returned and applicants will be informed by March 4, 2019, if their play is to be included in the Festival.

Do you have a passion for creative writing? Do you need to strengthen your business and technical writing skills? Whatever your reasons for wanting to be a better writer, University of Calgary Continuing Education can help. Our writing certificates, including Creative Writing and Professional Writing with specializations in Business and Technical Writing and in Marketing and Public Relations, are taught by published authors and cover all aspects of the writing process. Each program requires 200 hours of instruction time, and in some cases, courses can be applied to more than one certificate. One or more of these writing certificate programs may be exactly what you need.

All of the courses in the programs are delivered completely online. When you enrol in a course, you will be required to work within scheduled start- and end-dates. During the duration of the course, you will work whenever-and from wherever-you choose, as long as you have a computer and a reliable internet connection.

Call for Submissions: Prairie Fire Press

WORK MATTERS: Navigating the changing world of work

Prairie Fire Press is seeking fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, and poetry on the topic of work.

For centuries, people have written stories, essays, poems and plays about work, which provide a social history of that time. Today, this topic is just as relevant as we attempt to find or create work in a world that is changing faster than we can think.

What is “great work” and how do we find it? Has it been difficult to get a foot in the door? Or, do you find that the world is changing so quickly that you don’t know where to find the door?

Have you joined the growing trend of people who have dropped traditional work and are creating work on their own terms? Perhaps you’ve left high paying, stressful job to answer a quest or calling. Or, are you pursuing an artistic passion?

How are you managing to balance your desire for meaningful, work that reflects your passions, gain more freedom, and still pay the bills?

Call for Short Stories: Our Entangled Future

University of Oslo Department of Sociology and Human Geography and AdaptationCONNECTS

“The world and its possibilities for becoming are remade with each moment.” – Karen Barad

Attention writers and humanities researchers: this is a call for narratives that bring us closer to the potentiality of the present and activate “the politics of the possible” in our changing climate. Twelve stories will be selected for publication in the Our Entangled Future anthology. We welcome your words, your “new ontological metaphors”, your not-yet-here imagined realities!

Writer’s Block Survey

Have you ever experienced writer’s block? Are you interested in participating in a study and in learning more about how and why these blocks occur? Dr. Dominik Guess and graduate student Sarah Ahmed at the University of North Florida are conducting research on this fascinating subject and invite you to participate in their survey. Learn more at https://n00833539.wixsite.com/writers-block-survey.

Calgary Distinguished Writers Program Writer-in-Residence Position

The program encourages applications from writers of all genres who have one to four published and/or performed works to their credit. This residency is a full-time term position, dates non-negotiable. Applicants must be available September 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021. For more information on eligibility, see the FAQs.

The Canadian Writer-in-Residence is expected to spend 50% of their time working on their own writing, and 50% of their time on community outreach, including one-on-one consultations with the public and public lectures or readings. We encourage candidates to propose their own initiatives for community engagement. A background or demonstrated interest in community engagement — such as experience teaching or mentoring writers — is an asset.

While the Canadian Writer-in-Residence will be invited to speak to university classes and to the general public, this is not a teaching position.

This high-profile position has continued interaction with the external community and impact on the reputation of the CDWP and university. Over the past few years, the salary of the Canadian Writer-in-Residence has been in the range of $51,000–$57,000 over ten months. (This figure is subject to budgetary revision.)

Deadline: Applications must be received by 11:59 pm Mountain Standard Time on Tuesday, January 15, 2019.

White Wall Review Call for Submissions

Ryerson University’s literary magazine, White Wall Review, is currently working on expanding the opportunities for a more diverse pool of writers to submit their work to the magazine. The magazine, established in 1975, has gained recognition among Canadian poets and writers of both fiction and nonfiction, with a great majority of submissions coming from Ontario every year.

King’s MFA in Creative Nonfiction

This unique, two-year, limited-residency graduate program enables writers to continue to live and work in their home communities while working with writer-mentors to develop their book proposals and manuscripts. Faculty and mentors for the MFA include award-winning writers published by the top book imprints in Canada and around the world. Program includes two two-week summer residencies in Halifax, and one-week winter residencies in Toronto and New York, featuring guest publishers, editors, agents and writers.